Tag: evolution

Home Rituals – Chocolate Chip Cookies

So this week I wanted to share another recipe with you.  It’s an adaptation of the very first recipe that I ever learned (I was six years old) so it’s pretty dear to my heart.  I have a thing for making chocolate chip cookies.  Eating them isn’t so much the goal – it’s really just about the process of making them.  It’s a little ritual that I practice whenever I’m in a new living situation.  There’s something very soothing about it (maybe you can relate) and it brings a sense of being at home no matter where I am.

While cooking is an art baking is a science, so I stay pretty close to the original Toll House cookbook recipe.  But I’ve learned some tricks along the way too, so here’s the most recent evolution of this tried and true classic:

Chocolate Chip CookiesChocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

  • 2 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
  • 3/4 cup cane sugar
  • 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 10 oz. dark chocolate chips
  • 1 cup chopped nuts
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. In a small pan over low heat, melt butter, cane sugar and brown sugar. Stir to combine and remove from heat. Cool for at least 10 minutes.
  3. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.
  4. Transfer butter-sugar mixture to a medium bowl. Add vanilla extract. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  5. Gradually stir in flour mixture.
  6. Stir in morsels and nuts and CHILL the dough completely-at least 4 hours.
  7. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto ungreased baking sheets.
  8. Bake for 8-10 minutes – halfway through the baking time turn the pan 180 degrees.
  9. Allow cookies to cool before transferring.
  10. COOL the pans completely before baking another batch (option: run cold water over the pans).

Another trick is to use parchment paper to help reduce clean up. I like to store the cookies in the freezer in small ziplock bags and share them with as many people as possible.

*** For high altitude baking increase flour by 1/4 cup ***

Neo Yogis

Neo YogisSo I’ve had this idea lately. It’s still developing, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the “McYoga” epidemic and how the neo yogis can survive it.

Consumerism and materialism have done a number on watering yoga down. The evolutionary force of yoga is being overshadowed by the superficial results. The many recent innovations are wonderful but at this point it’s yesterday’s news. You wouldn’t know that from looking at a copy of Yoga Journal. Speaking of which, I flipped through one recently and didn’t find a single thing of interest in it.

Not even one.

I see gifted teachers falling into step with the politically correct monoculture (hey, everyone has bills to pay). The teachers who have stayed true to the call are widely dispersed. Some of them stay well underneath the radar. I can understand why.

The yoga market is a slippery slope.

On the flip side the iron is hot right now. Yoga has become a household word and people are ready to dive in. But they don’t necessarily know which pitfalls to avoid. These are revolutionary times and there have been some recent explosions in the yoga world.

It’s easy to get disillusioned and cynical but I do believe that within the widespread interest lies a seed of greater possibility. We are experiencing a resurgence of ancient wisdom in a technological era. It’s a blessing to be alive in this information age. We are part of a shift in the collective consciousness and people are waking up.

The potential for personal evolution is mind blowing and it’s all the more reason to meditate. But we have to shed the extraneous distractions and resist segregating ourselves.

Let go of the petty story lines.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you eat meat.

The greatest style is no style.

Enough with the New Age elevator music.

You’re not your fucking lululemons.

Let yoga be the discipline of freedom that it IS.